208 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



come here to Columbia and enter the two months short course. 

 The young man who won came up here and took the course and 

 made a good record. Another bank in our town did not want to 

 be left out on this, so I told them they could send some boys up 

 here for Farmers' Week; they did so, and the boys went home fully 

 enthusiastic over the new methods of agriculture. 



THE FARM BOYS' ENCAMPMENT. 



Last year when I went home from this convention, I had a 

 plan in my mind which I discussed with the banks and with the 

 farmers, and in which they became very much interested. I 

 wanted to hold a Farm Boys' Encampment, but as it costs con- 

 siderable money to hold one of these encampments, I began to 

 look around about the financial end of it. We had a banker in our 

 town who had sent a boy here to the Agricultural College, and 

 when I explained the proposition to him, he said that it looked 

 good. He took it up with the Board of Directors, who were all 

 farmers, and they all fell into line, and we began to get ready for 

 the Encampment. After the bankers had promised me that they 

 would finance the plan, I had to hunt around for a place to hold 

 the encampment, and one day as I stepped out on the sidewalk I 

 saw my friend Thompson and I said to him: "I have got the 

 bank to put up the money for the encampment, now, but where 

 can we hold it?" "Why," he said, "you can hold it right on my 

 farm." I saw that that was a fine place to hold the encampment, 

 as all of this man's stock was thoroughbred, everything on his 

 farm was thoroughbred. 



We have in our town a company of State militia. They 

 thought now it would be an excellent plan if they took their men 

 out to camp for several days before they went out to Riley to get 

 some instructions — and so they did that; the company went out to 

 camp on Mr. Thompson's farm exactly where we wanted to hold 

 our boys' encampment. You can see the bearing it had on the en- 

 campment, but of course we impressed on the officers not to work 

 their boys too hard — two or three days would be enough, and we 

 would not need the tents until Thursday; and so on Thursday morn- 

 ing we took possession. We had the camp in a beautiful place, 

 with everything laid out in military precision, and we had all the 

 paraphernalia of the militia for going into camp. We had three 

 colored cooks and a commissary of the company, so that every- 

 thing was carried on in military style. When the boys arrived that 

 morning, we formed them into companies ; each township in a com- 



